


Prisms.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Qui-Gon Jinn, Demisexuality, Kyber Crystals, M/M, Mutual Pining, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, in regards to lightsaber crystals, throwing canon to the wind and doing whatever the heckity heck i want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-02 09:49:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21159680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: The focus of a lightsaber is the crystal.The focus of a Jedi is the heart.Obi-Wan carries Qui-Gon's lightsaber after Naboo.  Qui-Gon builds another.





	Prisms.

**Author's Note:**

> All the colors  
Of the rainbow  
Hidden 'neath my skin
> 
> Hearts have colors  
Don't we all know?  
Red runs through our veins
> 
> Feel the fire burning up  
Inspire me with blood  
Of blue and green
> 
> I have hope  
Inside is not a heart  
But a kaleidoscope.
> 
> \- Sara Bareilles, "Kalediscope Heart"

_ A heart as clear as a kyber. _

This is what the masters teach the initiates as they begin their journeys into the depths of Ilum. A Jedi must know their own heart in order to be an empty vessel for the Force’s will, the masters say. 

_ The focus of a lightsaber is the crystal. _

_ The focus of a Jedi is the heart. _

A Jedi must know what is in his heart, because what he carries in his heart bleeds through to his crystal, the masters say, so Qui-Gon Jinn had tried to keep his heart clear as kyber as he walked into the caves of Ilum for the first time as an initiate. 

_ Clear as kyber, _ he told himself, _ clear as kyber. _It was so difficult to do so, because his feelings would keep rising up through his heart, his emotions in all their shades and hues; his quiet wonder at the beauty of the caves like a streak of silver, and the joy always there under the surface like a shade of violet; the black edge of fear that crept up upon him. 

_ Clear as kyber, _Qui-Gon whispered. 

He had taken careful, slow steps through caves that glittered with ice and the almost-shine of potential - bits of light winking in the corners of his eyes, the kyber crystals that had taken a brief interest in him, but then thoughtfully faded away. Not quite right. Not for him.

But there in the almost-darkness, he had found a many-faceted crystal. He had raised the crystal up to the weak light that crept in through the frozen lengths of the caves, and the refracted light broke upon him like a prism. He could not keep a clear heart like this: All his emotions were breaking to the surface, bubbling out of him like a wellspring.

_ What is in your heart? _ the Force had seemed to whisper, and his heart had answered, _ Growing things, green things, life in everything and how it is all connected, oh, I want to grow in the Force like a great growing thing. _

Qui-Gon cupped the crystal in his hands, and it had shifted through all the colors in the spectrum and all the subtle shades in between before settling into a quiet green glow between his fingers. 

He had set the kyber crystal inside his patiently-crafted hilt, and when he had ignited his weapon and the blade blazed forth into life, he could hear the Force singing through the hilt and straight into his hands, running through his body like the spark of an electrical shock, all the way to the center of his chest. 

He has not been without this lightsaber since then.

\---

When he wakes in the healers’ hall, Qui-Gon is awash in the fathomless blackness of his own fear. There are angry red sparks still flashing before his eyes. _ The Sith, the Sith_, he thinks, and he looks around wildly for Obi-Wan. Oh, there he is, Qui-Gon realizes, asleep in a chair by his bedside. The roiling unrest in his soul leaves him abruptly, and he closes his eyes briefly in profound relief. 

Obi-Wan has not changed out of the tunics he was wearing at the palace in Theed. There are scorch marks on the sleeve of his shoulder and charred places on his side where he had narrowly escaped being burned by the Sith’s lightstaff. He has a singed sort of air. 

There is a difference about him. It is the first thing Qui-Gon asks about, once the breathing apparatus is removed and he is able to talk. 

“Your hair,” Qui-Gon gasps out. He manages a faltering sort of gesture with a hand that does not quite obey him, and his breath hitches again. 

Obi-Wan leans over him and rescues his wavering hand, tucking it firmly between his own. “It’s my new look,” he says lightly enough, but the corners of his eyes are pinched with worry. He turns his head so Qui-Gon can see the shorn place where his braid had once hung. “How do you like it?”

“Suits you,” Qui-Gon rasps. This limited statement is all he can manage for some time, but he is overwhelmed by a surge of pride in his student, as bright-gold and gleaming as a sun. He feels so much pride for Obi-Wan’s accomplishments that it leaks out of his eyes in a fine golden mist, and he is quite unable to catch his breath. 

In the end, the breathing apparatus goes back on for the next several days. Then there is a span of time that passes in a blur, with only a few points of clarity. 

One point has to do with Obi-Wan again. He is often present, though much of the time it is only a vague awareness of his presence that Qui-Gon registers. He has been trying to put together the pieces of what had happened before, of what transpired with the Sith. There are parts that he is unsure of, that he can not quite recall, and segments that are out of place altogether. And there is something missing. He cannot think what it might be, but he can feel it each time he resurfaces. And then one day, his mind is almost clear, and he realizes what has been lacking: He cannot sense his lightsaber near, the constant hum of color and song that has never left his side.

_ Lost, _ he thinks, and he grieves over that loss as he would have the life of a dear friend. 

Days later, he confesses to Obi-Wan that he misses his lightsaber, and Obi-Wan stops and looks at him in surprise. 

“I regret its loss,” Qui-Gon says unhappily.

“It was never lost,” says Obi-Wan, his brows coming together in a familiar frown. “I thought you knew. It was my lightsaber that was destroyed, Qui-Gon. Not yours. It was your lightsaber that saved my life, in the end. It’s waiting for you, when you are ready to take it back.”

Qui-Gon waits with baited breath until Obi-Wan brings a box to his room and opens it, and takes out the lightsaber that has served him for so many years. 

Obi-Wan ignites the saber, and the brilliant green blade sparks forth. Qui-Gon hears the crystal’s steady singing, faint at the back of his mind. 

A Jedi’s kyber is responsive to his emotions. When he is filled with joy, his kyber knows, and responds; when grieved, his kyber crystal seems to cry with him. When there is danger, and his heart quickens, the kyber responds, passing him strength and foresight, attuning him to the threat. And a Jedi’s emotions may leave an impression on a crystal, a bit of soul-sense left imprinted inside the heart of a kyber. 

When he touches the hilt, Qui-Gon is thrown back into the last, strongest emotions he had felt while holding his lightsaber, just as though he is still dying slowly on the floor by the melting pit. 

There is the overwhelming blackness of his sudden fear, and even the scarlet bleedthrough of the anger he felt when the Sith had kicked Obi-Wan off a platform, tempered by years of practicing control. And then, a feeling like the darkest shade of indigo, rising up in him and making his hands steady and his arms strong: A sense of protectiveness, from the deepest core of his heart. And another color, a luminous azure so light he can barely distinguish it from pure bright whiteness, thin and fragile, but unmistakably there; Qui-Gon cannot find a name for it. He knows this color, it is as familiar to him as his own soul.

He remembers how the air crackled around them when the Sith ignited his lightsaber. He can still see the sparks flying every time their blades crossed, he can still see Obi-Wan’s feint, dancing towards their opponent and darting back again as Qui-Gon moved in. 

Something had flared to life sharply under his ribs, right then, and he had known he would have given everything in his limited possession to save Obi-Wan, to save his one precious life. For Obi-Wan’s sake, he would gladly offer up his own. And he had raised his own lightsaber and called out to the kyber inside, willing, _ For him. Keep him safe from harm_. 

He takes his hand away from the hilt. 

“Your lightsaber came to my hand, when I was so close to death. It sang to me - it felt like _ you_,” Obi-Wan says, almost dreamily. 

“What do you hear the crystal sing of?” he asks, and Obi-Wan closes his eyes, listening.

“Evergreens,” says Obi-Wan unhesitatingly, “Dirt under your nails. Sunlight dancing through the leaves of a tree. Tall grass waving in the wind. Mountains rising into the clouds. You.” 

Qui-Gon can see how Obi-Wan’s head tilts just slightly, listening, how he cannot help but spin the blade in his hands before disengaging it and holding the hilt towards Qui-Gon.

Qui-Gon puts his hand out to accept the hilt, but he stops. He can sense his crystal inside, how it resonates in Obi-Wan’s hand.

Something has changed. His crystal is not singing for him. 

“I owe my life to you, Obi-Wan. I would not be here if it had not been for you.” Qui-Gon puts his hands on Obi-Wan’s, curved around the hilt of the lightsaber whose kyber he has won. “It’s yours now.”

Obi-Wan looks at him, uncertain. “But I can’t,” he argues. “I can’t take it. It belongs to you.”

“Then you may borrow it, for a while,” Qui-Gon says gently. 

Obi-Wan shakes his head in protest, but his fingers tighten around the hilt, even so. He looks down at the lightsaber in his hands, at their hands clasped together around it. “For how long?” he asks, wondering.

Qui-Gon has long ago admitted to himself that there is nothing that has come into his possession that he would not gladly offer up to Obi-Wan in a heartbeat, should he require it. 

This is no exception.

“As long as you like,” Qui-Gon answers.

\---

He does not replace his lightsaber immediately. For many months, he is occupied by simply recovering his strength, learning to work with his new limitations. There is so much he can no longer do. His chest aches when he tries to use his arms, his spine aches after walking and bending. He recovers slowly, and even when he is able to walk unassisted, to stretch and balance again, he is weak, and his range of motion severely affected. 

He spends much of his time in meditation, locked inside his rooms. There is a clear, faceted prism that hang in his window. He had once spent the entirety of his paltry apprentice’s allowance on that prism, hanging from the stall of a vendor on an Outer-Rim world. He will watch the prism as the light moves gradually across the walls. For almost all of the hours of the day, it is simply a clear crystal, with no color to it at all, until the moment when the Coruscanti sunlight filtering in through the window shines through at just the right angle, and the light hits the crystal and color bursts forth, patterning the bare walls of his room with miniature rainbows. 

Qui-Gon will watch the prism spinning slowly, colors shifting as it turns on its string. Red to gold to violet and all the colors in between, drifting above his head and dancing with the light. There are so many shades, he muses, so many colors his human eyes cannot even perceive. Is there a name for each one? 

His eyes are drawn to the lightsaber hanging at Obi-Wan’s belt whenever he passes Obi-Wan in the hallways, or when Obi-Wan walks into his rooms. He cannot help but look to that familiar lightsaber, resting there on Obi-Wan’s hip, even long after he forgets to miss its weight hanging from his own belt. 

Something flutters in his chest each time he sees it there. The feeling shifts, like colors on the wall, a slowly-spinning prism, and each feeling is one of the colors that live inside his heart. 

Sometimes the feelings are identifiable. Pride flaring golden, that Obi-Wan should honor him so, that something of Qui-Gon’s should mean so much to Obi-Wan, and underneath that, an unfamiliar shade of pale lavender - a tremulous feeling like the quick intake of a breath, or the sudden beating of wings as a bird takes flight. 

Then there are other times, when the color shifts slowly, and Qui-Gon cannot find the right words to describe what he sees: Is it green or yellow, regret or nostalgia? Something in-between. There is the same bright azure-blue that creeps up behind his eyes at times, so light it is almost indistinguishable from pure whiteness, when Obi-Wan’s hand slides unthinkingly down the hilt of the lightsaber, a simple reassuring touch to ground him. Qui-Gon can never say what that feeling means. 

And there is another shifting color that rises up when he catches Obi-Wan practicing in an empty training room, raising his lightsaber in a pattern of unfamiliar movements.

The sight leaves him transfixed. He has not yet seen Obi-Wan wielding the green blade that Qui-Gon has carried for almost all of his life. The sight is eretheal, strange in its beauty. How the green light from the saber blade casts a strange tint on Obi-Wan’s face, a shift in color that startles Qui-Gon more than even the way Obi-Wan wields the blade. Instead of the familiar movements of Ataru, Obi-Wan holds the green blade in defense. 

Obi-Wan must sense his presence, because he lifts his head and pauses in the midst of his kata. 

“Is that Soresu?” Qui-Gon asks, breaking the spell.

Obi-Wan nods and mops the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. The green blade thrums with electric energy between them. “I feel differently,” he admits to Qui-Gon. “All my life, I have been rushing ahead, ready for a fight. I suppose I had something to prove. Ataru was right for me then. But now-” he hesitates, and finally shakes his head and shrugs: He hasn’t the words to describe what he feels. 

“May I watch?” Qui-Gon asks, and Obi-Wan looks startled.

“If you like,” Obi-Wan answers cautiously. Qui-Gon has watched him drill movements for well over a decade, and yet this feels different somehow. Qui-Gon’s green blade in his hands - the hilt is far too wide and long for Obi-Wan’s hands - the steady wall of fierce defense that Obi-Wan uses the blade for instead of the light, almost weightless way he had always moved in Ataru. 

The lightsaber ought to have been unwieldy in Obi-Wan’s grip; it would have hindered his movements if he had been using Ataru, but instead it is a solid weight that balances Obi-Wan out. It is altogether different and strange, and Qui-Gon is captivated, watching him. 

Obi-Wan powers down the lightsaber and holds it loosely in his hand. “I’m still not used to it yet,” he admits to Qui-Gon. “It feels so different than mine. And I have to use a different grip.”

“It is strange to see you carrying it,” Qui-Gon admits. Obi-Wan has used his lightsaber before, of course, in training, in practice. A Jedi must be prepared, and there is always the eventuality that one must wield another’s blade. But before, Obi-Wan had held it the way one holds something valuable, something that does not belong to them. Now he holds it with assurance. It truly belongs to him, now, Qui-Gon realizes.

He reaches out to touch the hilt, and their fingers briefly touch. It is a strange thing that happens then. The lightsaber’s blade crackles with sudden extra energy, and sparks fly into the air. 

“What was that?” Obi-Wan asks, astonished.

“I don’t know,” Qui-Gon answers him, equally astonished, and he is even more surprised when Obi-Wan throws back his head and begins to laugh. 

He feels that azure-blue feeling rising up again whenever he watches Obi-Wan wield his lightsaber. It lights up inside his chest when he watches Obi-Wan in the salles, unclipping the lightsaber from his belt and grinning up at his chosen opponent, raising the green blade in a salute and whipping the saber up and over his head in his first move. And when Obi-Wan defeats his opponent and stands there, still crouched in defense, arms steady and solid, he feels that azure-blue feeling winding through his heart.

For a long time afterward, Qui-Gon still sees the sparks from his lightsaber flashing before his eyes, even when he lies down on his bed and closes his eyes that night. Like sparks from a fire leaping out of the flames. And again he sees Obi-Wan, dancing with Qui-Gon’s lightsaber in his hands. He wants to turn the image into a poem, he wants to set it down, exactly as it is, so that he will not forget it for the rest of his years. 

\----

From the first moment he placed his hand on the hilt of his lightsaber, Qui-Gon had heard the song of the Force, reverberating in his heart and coursing through the entirety of his body, through his veins and in the marrow of his bones. The crystal at the heart of his lightsaber vibrated in his soul, harmonizing with the blood pumping through his heart, until every atom in him had resounded with a melody that contains the multitudes of the universe. 

He had gazed at the brilliant green blade, struck with awe, but he could not keep still; the crystals sang inside his bones and muscles, and he could not help but listen, and he began to dance with his weapon, twisting and twirling, spinning and leaping. He had danced until the sweat poured from his face and he panted with exertion. With all the power of that running through his body, how could he not move?

Qui-Gon is driven by a desire to feel that way again, to be an extension of the Force just as his saber is an extension of himself. He works to make his body strong again, so that he can once again be a conduit of the Force. 

There comes a point when he feels ready, and he takes up a training saber to go through some simple Ataru katas. But he is scarcely through a basic opening salutation before his arms begin to shake with the effort, and his breaths came quicker and quicker. 

And when he attempts a kata he has performed for well over forty years of his life, _ Strike-the-sun, _ a spike of pain flares in his spine, and he cries out. He drops the training saber to the floor as through he has been burned and crumples to the floor in agony. 

That is where Master Drallig finds him, waiting for the pain to fade so that he can return to his feet. He hovers near Qui-Gon’s shoulder, waiting for a signal that Qui-Gon is ready, and picks the training saber off the floor. 

“I wish to keep going,” Qui-Gon says stiffly. Master Drallig shakes his head. 

“You are not ready,” he says, and Qui-Gon stiffens instantly. 

“I mastered these katas forty years ago, Cin,” he says grimly. “I will master them again.”

Master Drallig grips his shoulder firmly. “You are not ready,” he repeats. “Not just physically, Master Jinn. You heart is not clear.”

Qui-Gon keeps his eyes on the teekwood flooring, his eyes following the swirls and lines of the bright orange and brown wood. He knows what is in his heart. The ever-present edge of blackness that he has felt ever since Naboo, that he should be permanently injured, unable to fight, unable to serve in the same capacity he has served all his life. Desperation to be of some use again, to be what he was. 

He is no longer Obi-Wan’s teacher. He is no longer a master of Ataru. He is no longer on the active missions roster. There are many things he is _ not_, these days. He has yet to learn what he still is, and the fear that he never will lives in his heart.

Fear is no reason to pick up a lightsaber. Even the youngest initiate understands this.

Master Drallig waits with him until his breathing eases. “You must know why you wish to fight,” he says. “And if you do not have an answer, then you must wait until you do.”

Master Drallig gently places the training saber on the floor before Qui-Gon and leaves him there, kneeling on the mat of the training room, looking at the lightsaber in front of him and waiting for an answer.

\---

A Jedi has no possessions. 

A Jedi has his body, but it is not his to do with as he wills; his body belongs to the Force, to the service of others, sometimes even to the Code. He has used his body as a weapon, guided by the Force, striking like a bolt of lightning where the Force directs him, he has used his body as a shield for the innocent; he has thrown the wounded across his shoulders and brought them to safety. 

Qui-Gon still has his hands, large and rough though they might be. He has used his hands to fight against those who would harm others, he has used his hands to carry the fragile bodies of children to their parents, he has used his hands to grow green things, delicate vines and persistent perennials. Qui-Gon has used his hands to care for his students. To wipe blood off the side of his Padawan’s face, to pick him up off the ground when he has taken a hit, to correct his stance in a kata.

When he thinks of himself, he pictures his battle-worn hands gripped around the hilt of his saber, lifted in defense of those who need protection. Qui-Gon has placed all his value in his own strength, his ability to fight, to defend. But now his body is weak, and his hands have lost their strength.

The Force is telling him it is no longer enough. 

He does not know any other way to be. He does not know what else he might do with himself. 

Perhaps there is another purpose for his hands. But if there is, he has not yet discovered it.

\---

Qui-Gon spends much of his time watching Obi-Wan tutor the Temple’s newest initiate. Anakin is managing steady progress. Obi-Wan keeps him at a slow pace, holding him back though Anakin would far rather rush ahead. It is almost a year of meditation and control exercises before Obi-Wan will let him touch a lightsaber.

Today Obi-Wan is leading Anakin in a meditation. _ What does it mean to be a Jedi, what does it mean to wield a lightsaber. _ It is a basic meditation, standard for initiates just beginning their journeys as Jedi. 

Qui-Gon leans back against the wall on the far side of a training room. Obi-Wan has invited him to watch, to offer advice afterward and to critique his teaching skills. 

“You know everything I know,” Qui-Gon had said, smiling a little self-consciously. “You don’t need me for that.”

“Moral support, then,” Obi-Wan says, grinning. Anakin, Qui-Gon has heard, is an attentive student but exhausting. 

Obi-Wan and Anakin sit cross-legged on a mat on the floor of a training room. Obi-Wan lays a training lightsaber between them. Anakin goes to pick up the saber with glee, but Obi-Wan stops him with a light touch to his wrist. _ Wait. _

“Why do you raise your lightsaber?” Obi-Wan asks him, and Anakin looks at him in confusion.

“Because you told me I could.”

“That,” says Obi-Wan, “is not reason enough. Every time you go to pick up your lightsaber, you should ask yourself why. And if you do not know, then there is no reason to take it up. Now.” Obi-Wan is looking at him with one eyebrow raised and a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Why do you raise your lightsaber?”

Anakin’s eyes are on Obi-Wan’s face. He says with clear intention in his voice, “I want to learn. I want to know how to do what you do.”

“Very well,” allows Obi-Wan, and Anakin reaches for the training saber with confidence. It is a student’s training saber, low-powered and slim for small hands to hold easily. Obi-Wan moves Anakin’s hands and positions his fingers just so, demonstrating a proper grip.

“We will try a basic stance,” Obi-Wan says, and takes his own lightsaber off his belt.

“Wait!” Anakin grins up at Obi-Wan cheekily. “Master, why do you raise your lightsaber?”

Obi-Wan halts and looks down at his student. “To teach,” he says slowly, “so that one day, you will be able to protect yourself.”

Qui-Gon watches as Obi-Wan leads Anakin stumbling through an easy Shii-Cho kata. _ Why indeed? _he asks himself. He has taught Obi-Wan all that he has learned about the Force, he suddenly thinks. There is nothing left for him to teach. There has been a shift in their roles. The student has become the master, as it should be. But what, Qui-Gon is wondering, what does the student’s master become then?

Perhaps, he is beginning to think, perhaps the master becomes a student again.

\---

After that disastrous first attempt, he must look at the truth and accept it for what it is. He can no longer perform Ataru, the leaps and twirls and spins in the air. He goes back to the basics, practicing the katas of Shii-Cho alone in his room, empty-handed, concentrating solely on his balance, the stretch of his aching muscles. 

He concentrates on the fundamentals, as though he is an initiate all over again. Long, slow katas, meant to strengthen his weakened muscles. _ Water-flowing-down-the-hill, Opening-petal, Roots-in-the-ground _, the same kata patterns he learned as a boy. He takes up a training lightsaber and a remote, ties a blindfold around his eyes and spends hours locked in a state of flow. 

At first, the unpredictability of the remote’s bolts catch him off guard, struggling to anticipate and deflect. Working against the remote has always been a weakness of Qui-Gon’s; it is not the living Force, after all. He is not as attuned to the aspect of the Force this exercise requires, and he can still remember tearing off the blindfold as a boy, frustrated by an exercise he could not excel in. 

But then, little by little, he can fall into the Force, and then there comes a moment like a kyber crystal coming into focus when the ignition button is pressed: Something in him turns over, and all at once clarity opens up before him, and there is a new, sudden pattern he finds in the unpredictable stun bolts that rain down upon him. 

He watches Obi-Wan train in Soresu and meditates with Anakin, and somehow two years pass, and he still has not replaced his lightsaber. He keeps borrowing training sabers for sparring practice, and it feels right; he is a learner again, after all. 

He is troubled by the emptiness of his hands. 

Qui-Gon tries to picture what a new lightsaber might look like for him. Perhaps a different hilt configuration, perhaps a different design, something sleeker. He meditates on that, but it is an exercise in frustration. He holds up a vision of his hands and tries to imagine a lightsaber in them, he tries to imagine his fingers, rough from years of training, wrapped around a hilt. But his hands remain empty.

“You have not replaced your lightsaber,” Master Windu notices, when he stops by Qui-Gon’s quarters for tea and to ask about Qui-Gon’s progress.

“I cannot see myself holding a lightsaber again,” he admits to Mace. “I cannot help but think the Force is telling me what I do not want to hear.” 

The Council, he knows, has been waiting patiently for him to decide that he is ready. They would gladly send him off to Ilum, and then to Xargat, to Ryloth, to Yvain. There are so many worlds, so much unrest in the galaxy. 

Mace frowns at him thoughtfully. “I cannot see that for you, Qui-Gon.”

Qui-Gon feels a spark of irritation. “I am an old man, Mace. If it is the will of the Force that I should outlive my usefulness, I cannot see the point in attempting to subvert it.”

Mace tilts his head in acknowledgement. “Perhaps,” he says. “But meditate on this, Qui-Gon. There are many uses for hands.”

\----

“Train with me,” Obi-Wan says suddenly one day. He spends what precious free time he has in Qui-Gon’s quarters, moving Qui-Gon’s plants to tidy up fallen leaves and crumbs of dirt, washing his few chipped whitewear dishes, bringing him new varieties of tea to try. Qui-Gon has given up trying to understand why he reserves the majority of his attention for his old master, but he is touched all the same, that Obi-Wan should want to continue to see him. 

Today Obi-Wan is sitting at his table, drinking his tea and frowning at the way his Chandrilian star-aster is dropping petals on the windowsill. “Soresu,” he says. “I know it is not your preferred style. Still, it has its advantages.”

Qui-Gon snorts gently. “Such as?”

“I haven’t died yet, using it,” Obi-Wan offers, and Qui-Gon makes a noise into his tea cup. “It would be good for you,” Obi-Wan adds.

Qui-Gon shakes his head. “I can’t.” He stands up from his chair and walks over to the kitchen, opening and closing a cabinet rather aimlessly. He picks up a cup and hovers over the sink. 

But Obi-Wan trails after him persistently. He finds Qui-Gon in the kitchen and corners him beside the sink. He is so close that Qui-Gon catches the scent of sapir leaves from the tea cup he is carrying. Qui-Gon goes very still. Obi-Wan’s shoulder is brushing up against his arm. There is a feeling he cannot identify, a rosy-warm color that settles upon his heart at Obi-Wan’s nearness. 

Obi-Wan reaches for the tea cup in Qui-Gon’s hand and their fingers brush on the handle of the cup. Obi-Wan does not take the cup right away. 

“Can’t, or won’t?” Obi-Wan says quietly. 

There it is again: The black edge of fear. Fear that he should not be able to do this thing, that he should make a fool out of himself by trying. 

He looks away, feeling ashamed. “Obi-Wan-”

“I’ll meet you there at seventh bell,” Obi-Wan says crisply, and takes the cup out of his hands.

\---

He has picked up a few moves of Soresu here and there; all Jedi end up adding bits and pieces of other forms to their own preferred styles. But he has never made a study of the form. He would prefer to run, to be on the move and on the offense. He has always had restless legs; standing still and crouching low has never appealed to him before.

But now, with his reduced reach and easily-exhausted muscles, it is a meditation of sorts to simply _ be, _ to exist in a single moment and a single space, moving as little as possible but so very deliberately each time. And the Soresu as Obi-Wan performs it is neither static nor uninteresting. Obi-Wan, he realizes, has found a way to become the same steady, still center Qui-Gon has learned to know him as through these movements, the counterweight to Qui-Gon’s wild hares of attack patterns, but for Obi-Wan, steady and still does not mean _ predictable _. He catches Qui-Gon off-guard again and again, twisting together katas that, at first glance, should not have gone together so well. 

There is an unexpected joy he is discovering in this dance they perform together, a streak of violet feeling that rushes to the sky straight out of his heart. In years past, he had lead their practices and Obi-Wan had mirrored his movements, anticipating each kata from long years spent training and their connection in the Force that bonded them together. 

And now, it is Obi-Wan guiding him, and he is struggling to keep up with his lightning-quick defense, following Obi-Wan breathlessly, never quite knowing where Obi-Wan will lead him. It is intoxicating, the newness of it all. The movements themselves, unfamiliar to him; the brightness in the Force that is Obi-Wan, whom he is trying to follow. The electric energy that runs through the Force balanced between them, through his hands and through the hilt of his borrowed lightsaber. 

When their practice is finished, he is staggeringly exhausted and wildly happy, in a way he has not felt in years. That burst of violet is filling up his heart, and he realizes again why the poets call this _joy_. 

“Competent,” says Obi-Wan, raising a single eyebrow at him. But he can see the invigorating freshness in Obi-Wan, too, how their lead-and-follow game has affected him too. 

“Surely that merits more that competent,” Qui-Gon argues. He cannot seem to stop from smiling all over his face.

“Very well,” Obi-Wan allows. “Quite competent.” But he is grinning back at Qui-Gon.

“I have much to learn from you,” he admits. “You have always taught me what I could not learn on my own,” he says quietly, and Obi-Wan looks at him in a manner he cannot interpret. 

“Tomorrow?” Obi-Wan asks, and he leaves for the showers when Qui-Gon aquiests, but Qui-Gon remains in the training room for some time afterward, taking his borrowed training saber through the movements Obi-Wan had demonstrated. 

_ It is quite new, _ Qui-Gon tells himself, _ there is something absorbing and fresh about learning something new. _Has it truly been so long since he has challenged himself to the acquisition of new knowledge, a new skillset? 

_ Green growing things, _ he thinks, and he remembers how it felt to be an initiate, eager to learn everything there was to learn about the Force, and how his heart had felt like a green growing thing raising its face to follow the sunlight.

_ I have been surviving for so very long, _he admits to himself. Even before Naboo, there had been a series of missions that had required all his focus and attention, and his every-growing dread of Obi-Wan’s approaching trials. 

When he meditates that night, it is on Obi-Wan’s bright azure-blue frierceness at his back, his saber blazing green and raised to defend them both, and the wild-violet joy of raising a blade to join him. 

\---

“Are you going somewhere?” Obi-Wan asks him, when he sees Qui-Gon standing in his doorway with a travel pack hooked over his shoulder.

“I am going to Ilum,” Qui-Gon tells him. 

Understanding dawns across Obi-Wan’s face. “I see.” 

“I had wondered if you might accompany me,” he says carefully. There is that uncertain feeling inside him, the pale lavender that quickens his heartbeat and makes his hands tremble. 

Obi-Wan straightens up. There is something shifting across his face, Qui-Gon can see; surprise and pleasure, immense awe. “I am honored,” Obi-Wan says. 

“Thank you,” Qui-Gon says, and that pale-lavender feeling shifts into wild-violet joy. It is not until his graying head is resting on his pillow late that night when he can put a name to that lavender feeling. 

Hope.

\---

A Jedi has no possessions other than his lightsaber. 

This is taught to them by the masters from infancy. Every material thing that comes into your life will fulfill its purpose, and then leave. Certainly there are items a Jedi must borrow. Robes, for example. A bed. A kettle for brewing tea, perhaps, or a set of Argentuian silver cutlery. But a Jedi must let each and every possession go when the time comes, when the kettle is cracked and no longer holds water, or when the robes are worn through, torn, stained. Even a Jedi’s body is a borrowed thing, for all Jedi emanate from the Force, and return to it in time. 

But a Jedi’s lightsaber is the opposite of these borrowed things. A Jedi’s weapon is his life. That is another thing all the masters say. A lightsaber is intended to be a permanent fixture in your hand, attached to the worn leather of your belt - one of those borrowed things that will need replacing soon - a lightsaber must always be within reach. A master will tell his padawan that his weapon is his life, he will chide his apprentice should the padawan lose his saber, or damage it in some way.

There are certain Jedi who have never had to replace their lightsaber. Vella Thruin, for example, a master from Coreillia, who was notable for never once having to repair or replace her lightsaber, despite the many hundreds of missions she completed or the many battles she fought with it. Her lightsaber remained in perfect condition, no nicks or scratches on the metal exterior, no heat damage to the interior. At the end of her life, Vella’s kyber crystals were the same bright yellow as they were when they first chose her in the caves of llum.

Most Jedi cannot say the same. It is not unusual for a Jedi to have to repair their lightsaber, or be forced to locate new crystals after their original crystals are damaged. 

A Jedi’s return to Ilum is altogether different than that first, joyous journey. And for some, it is their last voyage. Often when a Jedi dies, their kyber crystal is recovered and placed in a memory hall on the surface of the planet. 

Qui-Gon has visited the hall many times over the years. It is a beautiful room, with many tall windows several stories high, with kybers collected in rows. There are no identifiers attached to the crystals, but Qui-Gon still knows just where to find the kybers of those he has loved who have fallen. Tahl’s kyber, when he touches it, leaves him with the impression of honeyed tea, and warm porcelain, and the scent of ancient scrolls; her ever-present delight in all things. There is Remin’s, his friend from their shared initiate days, and Micah’s, whose kyber, when his fingers brush against it, sounds like the peal of unrestrained laughter. 

His crystal might have been placed there, if he had perished. Would it have been a comfort to Obi-Wan? he wonders. 

Qui-Gon works on lightsaber designs on pieces of flimsi on their ship, and when Obi-Wan bends over his shoulder, Qui-Gon shows them to him.

“It’s not the same design as your other saber,” notices Obi-Wan. “It’s different.” 

Qui-Gon basks quietly in the rosy-warm feeling of Obi-Wan’s hand on his shoulder. “So am I,” he answers.

\----

The icy walls of the caves glitter around him. Qui-Gon has walked a long way, far longer than he had before, by his own reckoning. His boots crunch on the ice and snow underfoot. The caves are silent except for his labored breathing. He walks farther, until the end of his endurance, and then he walks farther still. 

He reaches an alcove in the caves, so deep within that there is no light at all. And yet there is something shining in the distance. He sinks to his knees in the snow.

_ Why do you raise your blade? _ he asks himself. 

He closes his eyes.

He thinks of Theed first, of igniting his lightsaber and raising it to meet the Sith’s. He had raised his blade for duty, then, his mission to protect the queen, to help the people of Naboo; and he had raised his blade for justice, to fight against the encroaching darkness. 

But then he had witnessed the Sith go after Obi-Wan, knocking him off the narrow ledge where they fought and preparing to jump after him, and in that moment, Qui-Gon had not been fighting for duty, or justice either. He had seen Obi-Wan fall, and in his heart he had felt nothing but that tremendous surge of deep-indigo protectiveness rise up inside him. He had chased after the Sith, his own instincts screaming at him that it was a fool’s errand, that the Sith had chosen this territory, that he was being toyed with, that he was playing directly into the Sith’s hand, and he had not listened to his own instincts for a moment. All he could think of was his own desperate need to keep the Sith away from Obi-Wan. 

_ Why do I raise this blade _, he is asking himself, and he finds the answer in his heart, surprising him with its simplicity.

_ I wish to protect him, _ he admits to himself. _ Always, forever. My soul cannot bear the thought of watching him fall. _

For a moment, he can almost see Obi-Wan’s face in front of him. How his feelings have shifted so over the years. Hesitation to acceptance to delight in his presence, the joy of walking the narrow path toward knighthood side-by-side. Friendship and learning from each other. Growing together. Quiet companionship. And more.

Like a lightsaber blade ignited, the crystal at the heart of the blade coming into focus, he can finally see the shape this pale-lavender hope and longing has taken, what all the unaccountable feelings inside his chest means.

_ What is in your heart? _ the Force whispers, and the colors run together inside his chest.

Colors are rushing through his chest, one after another, all the shades of love he feels for Obi-Wan, the rosy-pink contentment that settles warmly upon him when Obi-Wan is near; the violet streaks of irrepressible joy in his company, the deep indigo surge of protectiveness that overtakes him when Obi-Wan is in danger. And underneath it all, the bright-azure feeling that he feels whenever he thinks of Obi-Wan. 

_ Obi-Wan, _ he thinks, and he catalogs the sense of him in the Force: Rivers, always moving, stars streaking past in hyperspace. The light of early morning, and flashes of blue, blue light illuminating a familiar face. 

And when he opens his eyes, a single crystal is visible in his sight.

When Qui-Gon wraps his hand around the crystal, it sings a familiar song, one that he has been learning slowly, over the course of many years, beloved and so familiar it seems to rise out of his own chest. The smell of sapir leaves, the sound of a single laugh. Light-colored eyes and a clear presence in the Force. 

\---

The metal fragments of his hilt are scattered around him on the floor of the hall. Qui-Gon carefully sets them together, joining each piece in its proper place. He turns the hilt around in his hands to inspect it. This lightsaber has a different look to it, though in many ways it is reminiscent of his previous hilt. It is still longer than most hilts, to fit the largeness of his hands. But this saber is perhaps a shade lighter, in weight and in color. It is almost all polished chrome, with only a few components made of matte black at the emitter and the power cells. 

He curls the kyber inside his palm and brings his focus to bear upon it, to connect to the Force through it, and he senses the way the crystal responds instantly. And there it is, that oh so familiar song, running through his blood. Water rushing past, luminous gray clouds with sunlight breaking through. The scent of sapir. 

He carefully inserts his crystal inside the heart of the hilt.

Obi-Wan is watching him with curious eyes. Qui-Gon stands up and holds the hilt out towards him, the long-standing tradition of allowing another Jedi to inspect this handicraft. Obi-Wan accepts the hilt and brushes a careful finger down the shiny metal. 

“It is not what I expected you to make,” Obi-Wan says.

Qui-Gon gives him a slightly crooked smile. “I had felt,” Qui-Gon tells him, “I had felt as though it was time for something different.” He nods at the hilt in Obi-Wan’s hands. “Go on.”

Obi-Wan ignites the blade, and the blade sparks to life, casting Obi-Wan’s startled face in a bright-azure blue light. He looks at Qui-Gon with surprise shifting over his face. 

“How very new,” Qui-Gon says quietly, gazing down at the pale blue light. 

“But I had thought-” Obi-Wan does not seem to know what to say. “It is not what I had expected,” he repeats himself. “When I think of you, I think of green things, growing things. I see you under a tree, looking up through the branches.”

“I have changed, I suppose,” Qui-Gon says.

“What changed?” Obi-Wan asks. There is a pale-lavender feeling trembling between them. Qui-Gon thinks Obi-Wan must feel it too, because the saber hilt shakes in his grasp.

Qui-Gon places his hand on the hilt, wraps his fingers around Obi-Wan’s hand. He looks down at his large rough hands and Obi-Wan’s smaller hands, wrapped around the hilt of the blade, and he wonders suddenly if his hands might be good for holding something else. Perhaps - such a pale lavender thought! - the hand of another. 

“What do you sense?” he asks quietly, and Obi-Wan closes his eyes, listening.

“Rivers,” says Obi-Wan unhesitatingly, “Water rushing past. Stars in hyperspace.” 

“Love,” says Obi-Wan, and then jerks his head up, surprised. “_ Yours. _Yours, for me.”

Qui-Gon does not know what to do. He pulls his hand away from the hilt. He turns his palms up and lifts his arms briefly, and lets them fall back down. And he finds he cannot say anything but the truth.

“When I ran after the Sith, I was thinking only of you, and how badly I wished to keep you from harm. I would have given anything to save you, anything I had to give. I was grateful to die, if it meant that you would be spared. And now, when I go to pick up a saber, I do so thinking only of you. Protecting you. Fighting with you. Being taught by you. That is why I built this saber.” 

He tries to smile, but he can feel his mouth tremble. Obi-Wan is looking at him with a look of such tenderness that he cannot bear to see it. He bends his head and lets his hair fall to cover his face. He cannot bear to see all that is diffused across Obi-Wan’s face. 

Qui-Gon is a large man. He has never felt so fragile in all his life. 

He hears the sound of the saber disigniting, the unmistakable feeling of Obi-Wan carefully tucking the saber on Qui-Gon’s belt. 

“What’s this?” he hears Obi-Wan says quietly, and then a thumb is brushing away the tears that are running down his cheek. He can hear Obi-Wan sighing close by his ear. “Oh, Qui-Gon.”

Obi-Wan’s hands are holding his head. He speaks in a quiet voice. “When I saw you fall, there in Theed, I was desperate to get to you. All I could think about was how much I loved you. That I must go to your side. And I could hear your lightsaber calling to me, and it sounded like how much I love you. It saved me, Qui-Gon, all the love I had for you in that moment - you see, you did save me, after all. I might have have fallen into despair, if it had not been for that. To the dark.”

“You saved the galaxy from a great evil that day,” murmurs Qui-Gon.

“I was not thinking of the fate of the galaxy,” Obi-Wan says. “All I could think of was you, and how much I needed you to live.”

He finally dares to open his eyes. 

He puts out his hands, empty as they are, and offers them to Obi-Wan. “I own nothing,” he says. “There is nothing I have to offer you. Nothing but my heart, for all that it is worth.” 

“A Jedi has no possessions,” Obi-Wan quotes at him, arching an eyebrow in that way that Qui-Gon knows means he is laughing at him, but he does not mind. 

“Then you may borrow it for a while,” Qui-Gon replies.

Obi-Wan takes his hand. He is smiling, and Qui-Gon finds that he is smiling as well, through a surge of violet joy that threatens to overwhelm him. “For how long?” Obi-Wan asks.

“As long as you like,” Qui-Gon answers. 

He curls his hand around the back of Obi-Wan’s neck and bends his head to kiss Obi-Wan on the mouth. And when Obi-Wan kisses him back, his heart is singing with every color, all at once.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2019 JinnObi Challenge....just in time! :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Prisms.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21603412) by [elrohir podfic (elrohir)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrohir/pseuds/elrohir%20podfic)
  * [That creaking in my heart is not pain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27192157) by [acatbyanyothername](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acatbyanyothername/pseuds/acatbyanyothername)


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